Term Strength
Term strength is easy to overstate because it is both technically real and deliberately modest. A planet has term dignity only when it occupies a degree assigned to itself in the chosen bound table. Being in a benefic planet's bound may be useful through disposition or reception, but it is not the same as possessing the dignity.
What the dignity establishes
In William Lilly's commonly reproduced point table, domicile receives five points, exaltation four, triplicity three, term two, and face one. That scheme belongs to a particular traditional method; Ptolemy and Valens do not reduce every judgment to Lilly's arithmetic. Still, the ordering makes the intended scale plain. Terms matter less than sign rulership and more than a decorative degree label.
A planet in its own term has some authority over the local conditions of its placement. In systems that use peregrine status, even this minor dignity can be enough to show that the planet is not wholly without essential dignity. It does not cancel detriment or fall, and it does not make a weakly placed planet powerful in every respect.
Strength is not a single total
Essential dignity describes a planet's status according to zodiacal position. House strength describes its opportunity to act. Sect, speed, visibility, and aspects supply still other kinds of condition. Adding them into one number can be useful for comparison, but it can also hide what kind of strength the planet actually has.
Consider two versions of Mercury in its own bound:
- Mercury is angular, direct, visible, and in its own bound.
- Mercury is cadent, retrograde, under the Sun's beams, and in its own bound.
Both have term dignity. They do not have equal practical capacity. The first combines local authority with conditions that make action more available; the second retains the dignity while other factors limit its expression. Removing the two term points from the second chart would be inaccurate, but calling it strong without qualification would also be inaccurate.
When term testimony carries more weight
Term dignity becomes especially useful in close comparisons. It may distinguish two otherwise similar significators in horary astrology, contribute to an almuten calculation, or clarify why a planet with no domicile or exaltation dignity still shows some competence.
Its testimony is easier to use when:
- the planet is near an angle or rules the matter being judged;
- the bound lord is also the occupant, so no second planet must deliver support;
- other dignities repeat the same planetary authority;
- the chart question genuinely depends on comparing planetary condition.
Conversely, the term may be a footnote when stronger testimonies dominate or when the exact birth time is uncertain enough to move a fast point across a boundary.
Different tables, different results
The Egyptian and Ptolemaic systems assign some degrees to different rulers. A planet can therefore have term dignity in one system and not in another. This is a methodological difference, not an invitation to select whichever table produces the preferred score. Choose and disclose the table before judging the placement. Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos provides his rationale; Valens preserves extensive Hellenistic use of bounds, while Lilly's later table reflects the Egyptian arrangement used in his practice.
A disciplined conclusion
The strongest defensible claim is narrow: a planet in its own bound has a lesser essential dignity at that degree. From there, ask whether the planet can use that dignity. An angular house, suitable sect, visibility, and supportive configurations may make the competence more evident. Cadency, combustion, or severe debility may keep it limited.
This avoids two opposite errors—ignoring terms because they are minor, or using them to rescue every difficult placement. For the conditions that qualify the ruler's contribution, see Term Modifications. For the occupant's connection with another bound lord, see Term Relationships.